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Regional REDD+ Initiative

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+)

Forest ecosystems provide a range of provisioning, regulating, cultural, and support services for maintaining healthy environment and sustaining livelihoods of millions of forest-dependent communities. The recent development paradigm and growth model did not adequately take into account the value and contribution of ecosystem services to the wellbeing of societies and their surrounding environment. Rapid economic growth and urbanization, agriculture encroachment of forested land, lack of inadequate land use policy, illegal mining, and increasing demand for forest products have led to severe degradation of forest while also decreasing forest cover area. Forest fires, spread of invasive species, floods, and landslides, often attributed to climate change and variability, have all contributed to deterioration of forest and loss of biodiversity.